Studio Two, EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith
Although John Lennon was suffering from a heavy cold which meant he missed this and the previous night’s shows, he travelled down to Abbey Road in the morning to overdub a harmonica onto ‘Thank You Girl’, the b-side to their forthcoming single ‘From Me To You’.
The session took place between 10am and 1pm. Lennon took 15 attempts to complete his harmonica part; these were numbered takes 14-28. Afterwards George Martin oversaw a complicated edit of takes 6, 13, 17, 20, 21 and 23, and mono and stereo mixes were then made.
Although just Lennon took part in the recording, the rest of The Beatles travelled from Bedford, from where they had performed the night before, to London.
This must’ve been the first time where John played a diatonic harmonica, not the chromatic type that he had used up until this point, and given that he hadn’t brought one with him to the session, he had to borrow one from Mal Davies, who happened to be a harmonica player himself.
I know that John subsequently switched to Hohner Marine Band harmonicas, perhaps from Bob Dylan’s influence, but I’m not sure when he made the change.